1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device and a method of arraying articles by using a robot. The present invention also relates to an article transfer system that includes an article arraying device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A system in which a vision sensor detects a plurality of articles placed in a random arrangement and a robot picks up individual articles based on position information of the detected articles and transfers the articles to another place, has been known.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2013-000860 (JP2013-000860A), for example, discloses a picking system in which a plurality of robots pick up a plurality of respective workpieces conveyed by a conveyor in a random arrangement. In this picking system, an image area of a camera is divided into a plurality of areas and a transfer motion for a workpiece in each of the areas is executed by a robot associated in advance with the corresponding area. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2013-000861 (JP2013-000861A) discloses another picking system in which a plurality of robots pick up a plurality of respective workpieces conveyed by a conveyor in a random arrangement. In this picking system, directions of individual workpieces in an image captured by a camera are determined to belong to which of a plurality of predetermined angle ranges and a transfer motion for each workpiece is executed by a robot associated in advance with the corresponding angle range.
Japanese Letters Patent No. 5288908 (JP5288908B) discloses an article arraying system for arraying a plurality of articles supplied in a random arrangement with a plurality of robots so as to rearrange the articles to a regular arrangement in which articles have the same orientation and mutually corresponding surfaces thereof face in the same direction. JP5288908B recites a robot gripper that has a characteristic configuration applicable to the article arraying system.